Rent A Wreck

Red tries to be a kinder, gentler person... until he learns that Mike plans to borrow his van for use in a demolition derby.

Cast (in order of Appearance):, , , , , , , , , ,

Segments: The Possum Lodge Word Game, Harold at the Office, If It Ain't Broke, You're Not Trying, Handyman Corner, Red's Sage Advice, Adventures With Bill, Famous People In Possum Lake History

DVD: The Red Green Show – 1999 Season

Red's Sage Advice
RED GREEN: I wanna talk to you older guys out there. You know, as the years go by, you end up looking into the bathroom mirror like you're looking under the hood of a used car. {nods} You see a lot of old parts, loose joints... {shakes head} and a tired power planet that uses an awful lot of fuel for what you get out of it. Now, most guys just put lower-watt bulbs into the bathroom, but some guys are actually going out and getting a facelift. {shakes head again} Please, please, think twice about that. You're only fooling yourself. No matter how many wrinkles you take out of the body work, you won't stop the transmission from slipping. Plus, you're messing with a good thing. See, the world does not expect much from us middle-aged guys. As long as we can sit up at the table, take out the garbage, maybe show up at work every once in a while, we pretty much carry our own weight. Once you start looking 25, people are gonna expect things from you that you can't deliver. Things like energy, ambition or any kind of a clue about anything. So I say just let the wrinkles and the jowls and the eye bags come, 'cause when you look like a basset hound, everybody will leave you alone! {nods and smiles} And let's be honest, that's all we really want. {nods again} If you wanna look younger, try smiling! It's cheap and it'll lift a lot more than your face! Remember, I'm pulling for you. We're all in this together.

Famous People In Possum Lake History
{Red walks into another room in the lodge.}

RED GREEN: Back in the 1930s, multiple births were rare. Everybody knew about the Dionne quintuplets and the cash cow that had been. So it was no surprise that our local town council tried to drum up interest in the birth of the Manning triplets.

{Cut to a photograph of three small children.}

RED GREEN: {voiceover} Born to Carlotta and Max Manning on August 24, 1932 was a set of triplets, the Manning triplets, all identical, especially in looks. They were all boys. They were named Snap, Crackle and Pop. That was the winning entry in a contest sponsored by our local paper, the Possum Lake Daily Movement.

{Cut to another photograph, this one of a house.}

RED GREEN: {voiceover} The town built an addition on the family home to house the new arrivals and to seat 150 paying customers on bleachers inside the house.

{Cut back to Red.}

RED GREEN: The family got the home and the town got all the gate receipts, plus all the merchandising rights and future considerations if the parents were crazy enough to try this stunt again. {smiles}

{Cut to Dalton in his store.}

DALTON HUMPHREY: Well, it was a disaster! Nobody came. I mean, who'd come to see three identical boys when you could drive a few hours more and gawk at five identical girls, plus get a chance to see what French people look like? Then the story came out that Mr. Manning had been in Europe when the boys were born. Plus, he'd been abroad for the entire year before that, you know? And it took the heartwarming luster of innocence off the story, {taps his nose with his finger} if you get my drift.

{Cut to a photograph of a man in a suit.}

RED GREEN: {voiceover} When Mayor Dennis Flaherty was named by Mrs. Manning as the boys' father, he confessed and immediately sued for half the gate receipts.

{Cut back to Red.}

RED GREEN: He was turfed out of office later that day. Many years from then, a broken man, his dying words were, "Bad things come in threes."

{Cut to Mike sitting in the back of a police car with the door next to him open.}

MIKE HAMAR: Growing up, those Manning triplets did all kinds of sports, and they always did them together.

{Cut to a photograph of a baseball team.}

MIKE HAMAR: {voiceover} Started with baseball. They played first, second and third base for the Possum Lake Marker Boys.

{The photo dims, except for a circle over three of the teammates, all the same height and standing together, presumably the Manning triplets.}

MIKE HAMAR: {voiceover} Even got their names in the records books as the only triplets to turn a triple play in a night game at home on natural grass prior to the fifth inning.

{Cut to Hap Shaughnessy on his boat.}

HAP SHAUGHNESSY: Well, all the trouble started in Turkey. The three Manning brothers and I went down and enlisted in the Possum County Light Dragoon Highlanders of Foot Rifles. But they never saw any combat action since they were pretty green. And funnily enough, our country wasn't involved in the Turkish war in any way.

{Cut to a photograph of three men with mustaches all dressed in military attire.}

HAP SHAUGHNESSY: {voiceover} Ironically, they wound up in the Army Postal Corps, sorting overflow mail for the Dionne quints. 'Course, that involved a lot of heavy lifting. All three brothers injured their backs and had to be (?) out of the service.

{Cut back to Hap.}

HAP SHAUGHNESSY: This led to the famous Manning rule: they would never again allow members of the same family to sort mail in the same unit.

{Cut back to Red.}

RED GREEN: Using their honorable medical discharges, all three brothers went to work for the post office where they went immediately on compensation until their retirement in 1987. The Manning triplets are still alive today. They're working on three separate volumes of their autobiography called "Is This a Great Country or What?".

{Red turns and leaves the room.}

Real World References

 * The Manning triplets' names are all the same as the three Rice Krispies elves, Snap, Crackle and Pop.

Famous People

 * The "Famous People" segment mentions the Dionne quintuplets, born on May 28, 1934. Oddly, based on that and the lodge members' comments, they would be two years younger than the Manning triplets.